Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Every time before I pack my travel photo bag, I try to envision what kind of photos I expect to take on location for the job or portfolio work. In my early days of photography I was prepared for every possible photo situation by bringing most of my gear. I recall one time where I lugged 20 kg (40 lb) of DSLR gear in a backpack through Paris. That was an awful experience!

Since my switch to Fuji X cameras 3.5 years ago, thankfully my travel photo bag has become a lot lighter. The night before this trip to Paris I decided on the following gear to bring:

That's 2 camera bodies plus 4 fast prime wide angle focal length weighing around 1.6kg (3.5 lb)!!! Add spare batteries and ND filters and you're still well below 2 kg (4lb) in your bag. That is only 10% of the weight of the gear that I took along a few years ago!

My Paris streeet photography gear

Everything plus my iPad Air and battery chargers fit comfortably into my ThinkTank Retrospective 10 bag. With the small bag and photo gear there have been no hassles at airport security for me any more. A great way to start my trip quite relaxing despite the early red eye flight.

For my style of street photography I prefer wide angle lenses. I want to be close to the scene while still providing enough space around my subject to explain the situation to the viewer. In terms of 35mm film equivalent field of view I covered 12mm (8mm fisheye), 21mm (XF 14mm), 28mm (WCL-X100) and 35mm (23mm on X100S).

I stepped off the plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport with my X-Pro 1 + XF 14mm and X100S ready for action and right there was already my first frame to be captured. Always be ready is important in street photography!

The lone traveler - Fuji X-Pro 1

For a street photographer to start the day with a portfolio keeper is equivalent to an athlete who manages to get a great result in his first attempt. Unposed street photography is like a box of chocol... I guess you already heard that analogy too many times ;)

Off to downtown for breakfast and more street photography:

La Cigale Paris - Fuji X-Pro 1

Bulldog roaming the city - Fuji X-Pro 1

Comparing the Fuji X-Pro 1 autofocus to the improved AF on the X100S, the X-Pro 1 AF feels a bit long in the tooth now. While you can still get good results - especially when following some of my AF tips from a previous post - I really wish for a X100S or X-T1 style performance boost on Fujifilm's top of the line camera carrying the "Pro" in its name.

Industrial Bird Production - Fuji X-Pro 1

Don't ignore photo art - Fuji X-Pro 1

Shadow walk and talk - Fuji X100S

"2" - Paris Street Photography - Fuji X-Pro 1

Paris is a giant catwalk - Fuji X-Pro 1

And while the X-Pro 1 AF is slower than the one on the X100S I still used the X-Pro 1 for most of my photos in Paris. The XF 14mm with it's 90° field of view feels very natural to me and it gives me enough surrounding environment of the scene to put my subject into a context - like the girl in the photo above looking at the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Victory anniversary celebrations Paris 2014 - Fuji X-Pro 1

And the XF 14mm has the wonderful manual focus mechanism that allows me to zone focus the "traditional way" with the focus distance on the lens instead of the "virtual distance scale" in the viewfinder. This is a huge advantage and I really hope that future wide angle lenses (besides the XF 14mm and XF 23mm) and maybe even a future X100 will get this great feature, too.

Cliché Citroën 2CV and Sacré-Cœur photo - Fuji X100S

Spaceship hiding in a Paris metro station - Fuji X-Pro 1

Circle of trust - Fuji X100S

I went to Paris with a very light photo bag and only wide angle lenses. If I would go back tomorrow with a street photography assignment, would I pack differently? Not at all! It was very pleasant to move around freely with a light back and small unobtrusive and quiet cameras. And those are important requirements for successful street photography!

Monday, May 12, 2014

I had been contacted by Fujifilm in December 2013 where they invited me to become an official Fujifilm X-Photographer. And now my profile and portfolio have been posted on the official Fujifilm X-Photographer website:

My special thanks go out to Fujifilm Middle East and Fujifilm Germany who supported me in the process. I am honored and happy to join the official Fujifilm X-Photographer community. It feels humbling to be part of this awesome group next to highly respected and famous photographers like Zack Arias, Kevin Mullins and Mr. Strobist himself: David Hobby. But there are so many other talented and creative photographers in this group, too. It is certainly worth to browse around and look at what other photographers worldwide create with Fujifilm X-Cameras!

What will change about my FujiXfiles blog now?
My FujiXfiles blog has been read by more than half a million readers since I started it in mid-2012. I have gotten a huge amount of positive feedback and got to know so many great photographers from all over the world through it.

My main reason to start this blog was to show what these little Fuji-X mirrorless cameras can do and to post tips and tricks on how to get the most out of them. And I will continue to do it in the future, too! :)

Yes, you can get good sport action photos without a big DSLR :) - Fuji X100S

The most read post on my blog so far has been the one about the X system AF focus tips. And while the overall performance of Fuji X-Camera AF has been constantly improved via FW updates it may still be worth to take a look at it again to get the best possible results from your X-Camera.

I will continue to write about my experiences with Fuji X-Cameras and show photos that I have taken with them. And I will still speak freely my personal opinion about Fuji-X products. I have no problem to point out things that I feel can improve the products. After all, I want the Fuji X-Cameras to be the best cameras as possible for me. And Fujifilm has shown in the past that they listen to us photographers and customers in order to built a long lasting customer relationship. And that is what inspired me to write this blog post after 3 years of using Fuji X-Cameras: "Domo Arigato Fujifilm and Ganbatte Kudasai!"

Fuji does not let their X customers stand in the rain. I love the FW feature updates :)

And one more thing! If the X-Photographer status will ever get me to test gear that is not announced, I will naturally not talk about it! 100% certain, so don't even ask! And if I'll ever speculate about future Fuji X products this will be based 100% on my personal opinion without any inside information or knowledge. In that respect my guess is as good as yours :)

With that out of the way, I hope that I can be of help to Fujifilm and all X-Photographers in continuing to make the Fuji X-System the best it can be.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

It's now 3 years ago when my camera shop called and told me that they just got a Fuji X100 in and that I could buy it. 30 minutes later I was holding that camera beauty in my hands.

I surprised myself a bit by buying a camera that I had never held in my hands and did not read any usability reviews about before I bought it. On top of that I was pretty sure that I would never buy another camera without a full frame sensor since I switched to a Canon 5D / 5D MK II long before.

But the Canon's were simply too heavy to always have them with me. I recall a photo tour to Paris where my giant back pack full of DSLR bodies and premium lenses completely wore me out. Towards the end of that trip I was down to one camera body with my 35mm f1.4 lens and the rest of the gear locked up in the hotel room.

To go "back" to an APS-C size sensor in order to greatly reduce the bulk of gear I had to lug around with me was all of a sudden very appealing. And a camera that had and optical and electronic viewfinder plus the aperture ring, shutter time and exposure compensation on dedicated wheels and in locations where I used to have them in my trusted analog cameras made the X100 worth a purchase without trying before buying.

The X100 was supposed to be my every day casual shooting camera. I still had the big DSLR rig for "serious" jobs. I took my first photos with the Fuji and loved the image quality and color out of camera so much, that I even threw my principle of "never to photograph anything else but RAW again" over board and set the X100 to JPG only.

Fuji X100 with initial Firmware at the aquarium at ISO 2000

But as much as I loved the X100 I had quickly written down a fairly long list of things that I found quirky about it. One example was the fairly long minimum focus distance before having to switch to macro. I like to get close to the action and constantly ran into that focus trap. I was especially annoyed by the 4 button pushes it took to engage and disengage the macro mode. Quickly I had a substantial list of things written down that, from my experience, should work differently. I mailed it out to reps and posted it into forums without expecting anything to come out from it..

A walk with the compact X100 and returning with great image quality

But then something strange happened. Fuji responded to many of these points (that other photographers had pointed out as well) and implemented massive changes through (free) firmware updates! This was a completely new experience for me. My previous camera brands only did firmware updates if something was seriously broken. But Fuji listened to us photographers and made the cameras better without forcing us to purchase the next years model that fixed all previous issues - the way I was used to from other camera manufacturers.

Using the vertical in camera pano mode is my hobby

By that time I was hooked! I was first on the list to get a X-Pro 1 with XF 18mm and XF 35mm lenses and my usage of the DSLR's was reduced drastically! Although the early X100 and X-Pro 1 had some special auto focus "characteristics" I somehow managed to still get most of my images sharp out of those cameras. By that time the X-Cameras had gotten a lot of attention and amateurs as well as pros gave it a try. Some were more happy than others, but switching from a DSLR AF to a CDAF AF takes a bit of a different approach. This motivated me to share my experience of how to get most out of the Fuji X AF via this blog post. By today it has been read a few hundred thousand times and I have gotten a lot of positive feedback.

Happy getting the X-Pro 1

But Fuji also continued to improved the X-Cameras via FW updates in respect of usability, AF performance and features! And even after introducing the X100S upgrade from the X100 after 2 years of production, they still pushed out a major FW and feature update to the X100 for free! This may have actually hurt the sale of new X100S, but it's probably massively outweighed by future customer loyalty.

3 years Fuji-X and counting

Today, 3 years after purchasing my first Fuji X-Camera my annual share of photos taken with Fuji X-Cameras vs. my FF DSLR is about 99% to 1%. I almost always take at least one of my Fuji cameras with me when I leave the door (that's what photographers should always do). Now it is hard for me to justify keeping the DSLR, some jobs are still DSLR territory for me, though. But with each lens that Fuji introduces and that covers my previous exclusive DSLR lens field of view, I can sell yet another part of my DSLR set (like XF 35mm f1.4 replaced my EF 50mm f1.4 and XF 56mm f1.2 replaced my EF 85mm f1.8).

X100S - right place, right time, right camera :)

Fast lenses like the XF 35mm f1.4 allow for shallow DOF even with an APS-C camera

The X100(S) is not a portrait camera - really?

Bird and Prey - Fuji X100S

The X100S let's me focus on my composition by allowing me to intuitively operate the settings.

Camera and lens FW updates made precise focusing on the X-Pro 1 much easier

X100S with perfect timing capturing suspense, action and hope in one frame

The day I gave RAW on the X-Pro 1 my first try

X100S was my tool for Zack Arias DEDPXL01 assignment #lines

After tenthousands of images taken with my X-Cameras I hope that Fujifilm continues to innovate the X-System like they have done in the past 3 years. And if they do, my DSLR gear will be obsolete for me one day.